Does your brand work with influencers on TikTok? If not, now is the time to begin. Billions of people have downloaded TikTok, and they look up to the influencers they follow—making this app the perfect space for you to start promoting your company.
TikTok is a popular social media platform that’s been around since August 2018, when the apps Musical.ly and Douyin merged to create something new. With over 2.3 billion all-time downloads and 800 million active users, TikTok quickly became popular worldwide. TikTok users create short videos that are often humorous in nature—which is the perfect recipe for viral content—and with more and more celebrities and influencers joining the TikTok platform, there’s no shortage of people to follow.
TikTok is primarily used by the younger generation. According to demographic statistics from Omnicore, 41% of TikTok users are between the ages of 16 and 24, and about half of TikTok’s global audience is under the age of 34. TikTok is a popular app download in overseas countries such as China and India. The app is also slightly more popular among males—56% of TikTok users are male and 44% are female.
Influencer Marketing
Influencer marketing, a marketing strategy that many brands use on other social media platforms, is becoming more and more popular on TikTok as well. Here’s how influencer marketing works:
- A brand finds an influencer (like a celebrity, athlete, musician, or blogger) who would be interested in their products and reaches out
- The brand then compensates the influencer (with free products, cash, or both) to create content that promotes the brand
- The idea is to expose the brand to a new audience of people who would potentially be interested in the product
Influencer marketing works because people look up to influencers. 70% of teens trust influencers more than typical celebrities, and 86% of women use social media to get purchasing advice. That’s how influencer marketing campaigns can earn $6.50 for every dollar that’s spent. Influencer marketing is a cost-effective way to acquire customers and is continuing to grow—especially on TikTok.
TikTok influencer marketing is on the rise, and it’s a smart move for your business—especially if your target audience includes Generation Z. The following explains why.
Why You Should Take Advantage of TikTok Influencer Marketing
Influencer marketing on TikTok has a lot of benefits for your brand.
One huge benefit is how TikTok influencer marketing can increase brand awareness. When you partner with influencers, you’re exposing your brand to a whole new group of people—people who may have never heard of your brand before but are likely to be interested in following along.
Working with influencers is a smart way to easily connect with people in your target audience, and on TikTok, partnering with influencers is easier than ever.
Many brands choose to work with influencers on Instagram which is still a good marketing method, but it can be more difficult to get in touch with influencers. Why? It takes a while to get a lot of followers on Instagram, so by the time an influencer has lots of followers they’re already well-established, making it even harder to get their attention. But, since TikTok is a fairly new platform and you can see viral success overnight, TikTok influencers tend to be open to doing more.
Another big benefit of TikTok is that it’s easy to be creative. TikTok is a playground for influencers and brands; you can experiment with your campaigns to make them look like native ads, not like the sponsored ads you see on Instagram.
By partnering with influencers, you can provide your target audience with high-quality, valuable TikTok content. That content will help them trust your business and down the road, which can lead to more sales.
TikTok is an especially important platform for brands to focus on influencer marketing. It’s the perfect way to reach younger demographics that can be hard to connect with on other social media platforms.
The short and catchy videos, sounds, and other content elements of the app can easily grab a user’s attention as they scroll. With the app only growing in popularity, TikTok continues to be a gold mine for brands interested in influencer marketing.
How to Find the Right TikTok Influencer
Working with a TikTok influencer is an essential piece of your marketing strategy. But with so many influencers on the app, how do you find the right one? Here’s how to find the perfect TikTok influencer for your brand.
1. Consider Your Niche
First of all, it’s important to find an influencer who’s in your niche or industry. If you’re in the fitness industry, for example, you’ll want to work with an influencer who’s in the fitness niche—maybe a personal trainer or an athlete. Why is this so important? Simple: If you partner with an influencer who’s in your niche, he or she will probably have the same target audience that you do.
Do a little research to figure out the types of influencers you should be working with. You can also look at your competitors and see what they’re doing when it comes to influencer marketing. This is a smart way to make sure you’re on the right track.
Once you’ve found some potential influencers, you’ll want to spend some time on their social media pages to get a feel for their audience and to calculate their engagement rate.
2. Use a TikTok Influencer Search Tool
Ready to dive into the search? Consider using a TikTok influencer search tool, like Influence Grid. This popular tool makes it easy to find influencers for TikTok according to certain parameters. Influence Grid includes the following features:
- Search by country
- Search by topic
- Filter by engagement rate
- Filter by account size
- Filter by average video views
- Search by name or username
- See engagement, follower count, video views, and other stats for each influencer
When you’ve set the parameters of your search, you can export the search results to an excel spreadsheet.
What’s more—using the TikTok influencer search tool gets you contact information (Instagram, YouTube, and email address if available) for each influencer. This is a big plus because it means that you don’t have to spend the time and effort searching the internet trying to get in touch.
3. Do a Quick Search on Google
Influence Grid and other influencer search tools are helpful, but Google also does the trick—just a simple search can pull up lists of influencers to research. Try searching the following keyword phrases on Google:
- TikTok influencers list
- TikTok influencers [insert your industry or niche]
- TikTok influencers USA
You can also search for influencers from other platforms to see if they use TikTok as well. For example, if you came across musician Holly Humberstone’s popular Instagram account, you might wonder if she uses TikTok, too. A quick Google search for “Holly Humberstone TikTok” pulls up Holly’s account and follower count, plus a few news articles about the singer’s career.
In addition to using Influence Grid and Google, you can also search on the TikTok app itself. Try searching for trending or relevant hashtags to find influencers. For instance, searching for the hashtag “#howto” pulls up several videos from influencers—like Maddi Koch, a popular YouTuber who has 2.2 million TikTok followers.
4. Work With an Agency
The final method you can use to find TikTok influencers is to work with an agency. This route can have a lot of benefits. An agency will work closely with you, getting to know your brand, your goals, and your strategy. Then they’ll match you up with an influencer and help facilitate the collaboration. You won’t have to search for the influencers yourself—the agency will do all the work.
However, working with an agency can also get expensive fast. You’ll have to decide whether you want to put in the time to find influencers by yourself, or if you’d rather spend the money to have someone else do the work. In the end, this is a decision you’ll have to make based on what’s most valuable to you.
How to Reach Out to Influencers on TikTok
Once you have the influencer’s contact information from a search tool like Influence Grid, it’s time to reach out to that influencer and ask if they’d like to work with you. Here’s how to reach out and what you should say.
Reach Out Through Email
You can find an influencer’s email address on their Instagram profile or through a search tool like Influence Grid. Email is a good way to reach out to influencers because it’s professional. Sending an influencer a message to their business email address shows that you’re legitimate and truly want to work with them. You also have space to write a longer message than on other platforms like Instagram DM’s.
Your email should be personalized and specific to every influencer. It’s okay to copy and paste the basic structure of the email, but make sure to add personal touches for each individual influencer.
Focus on the influencer, mentioning specific things you like about their work. Then briefly outline your pitch, how it will benefit the influencer, and what you would expect them to do. Your overall tone of voice should be casual and conversational, showing the influencer the real people behind your brand.
Here’s an example of what an email to an influencer might look like:
Hi [first name]!
Hope your Monday is going great! I’m John from ABC Nutrition, a company that makes high-quality supplements for athletes. Your recent TikTok video “Vegan What I Eat In A Day” popped up in my feed and I really enjoyed it. You can’t go wrong with protein oats for breakfast!
I’m reaching out because we’re about to launch a new line of vegan protein powder. Since you’re vegan, I thought you and your audience might want to know. Would you be interested in doing a sponsored TikTok video showcasing this product? We’d be happy to send you a case of the protein powder for free.
Shoot me a message back if you’re interested and we can set up a time to connect via phone.
Thanks for your time—and keep crushing it!
What do you do if you don’t hear back?
Send a follow-up email about a week later to make sure your first message wasn’t overlooked or marked as spam. Again, keep your tone friendly and casual. If you still don’t hear back, it’s probably time to let that influencer go and move on.
If you get a negative response and the influencer doesn’t want to learn more, thank them for their time and move on to the next person on your list.
If you get a positive response, great! Keep reading to learn more about how to work with TikTok influencers.
Reach Out Through Instagram DMs
If you’re having trouble finding an email address, you can also reach out to influencers via Instagram DMs. Your direct message will probably have to be shorter than an email would be, but that’s okay. Just introduce yourself and then move the conversation to another channel as soon as possible.
What should your DM say?
Try this or something similar on for size:
Hi [first name]! I’m John from ABC Nutrition. I enjoy following your account and seeing the vegan recipes you post. We’ve got a new vegan protein powder coming out and I was wondering if you’d be interested in collaborating? If so, we’d be happy to send you some for free. We can set up a call to discuss more details. Let me know what you think!
Reaching out to influencers through their Instagram DM’s can be effective if you do it the right way. Keep your message short and friendly for best results. Then, if they’re interested, invite them to hash out the details over email or phone where you have more space to chat.
How to Partner With TikTok Influencers to Achieve the Best Outcome
You’ve found the TikTok influencers you want to work with, you’ve reached out to them via a channel of your choice, and they’ve agreed to collaborate with you. What happens next?
Now, it’s time to discuss the details of your campaign so you can get to work. Here are a few things you need to do.
Establish Your Goals
Before you can collaborate with influencers on TikTok, you need to define your goals for the campaign.
Are you looking to increase brand awareness? Boost your engagement rate? Make more sales? Write down a list of specific goals that you can use to measure the campaign’s success.
Some of your goals might stay the same from campaign to campaign, while others will vary.
Determine the Terms
Once your goals are in place, it’s time to determine the terms of your partnership.
Some brands send influencers free products for them to promote. Others pay influencers a predefined amount of money. Decide how you want to compensate influencers and then make a proposal that they can accept or decline.
As you work together to determine the terms of your partnership, you’ll also want to address things like the timeline and the deliverables—what type of content the influencer will create in exchange for what you’re giving them.
Audio/Visual Elements
There are multiple types of content that influencers can create on TikTok. You and your influencer might choose to create:
- Dance videos
- Duet videos (so their followers can “duet” the original video)
- Challenges
The sky’s the limit when it comes to audio and visual elements. You might even choose to create your own “sounds” that your followers and the influencer’s followers can use.
Work together with your influencer, drawing on their creativity and social savvy as you figure out what type of content they’re going to create.
Draw Up a Contract
When you’ve finished discussing the terms of your partnership—including deliverables, pricing, and deadlines—you’ll need to draw up a contract.
The contract is important for both your brand and the influencer. It should address and help with the following 10 things:
- Managing rogue behaviors
- Endorsement disclosures
- Specific activities
- Exclusivity
- Content ownership
- Pre-approvals
- Termination
- Payment
- Measurement
- Misinformation
It’s best to work with an attorney to create this contract so they can make sure you’re doing everything by the book. The contract will then help protect both you and the influencer in case anything goes wrong.
When the contract has been signed, you’re ready to get started!
This is the fun part: Work with your influencer to give them a feel for your brand so they can produce content promoting your products. Then measure the results of the campaign according to the parameters laid out in the contract.
Finally, when the campaign is complete, rinse and repeat—with the same influencer you worked with, or with another one. You can have multiple influencer campaigns running at once or put all your focus into one campaign at a time.
Working With Influencers on TikTok
TikTok is a popular social media app that’s filled with influencers and when you know how to find the right influencer for your brand, you’re halfway to a successful influencer marketing campaign.
Use these tips to reach out to your ideal influencer then create a campaign together and watch it succeed!
